Former IN FLAMES Guitarist Pays Tribute To SLAYER's JEFF HANNEMAN

May 14, 2013

On May 3, Metal Shock Finland's Tarja Virmakari conducted an interview with former IN FLAMES and current THE RESISTANCE guitarist Jesper Strömblad (pictured below). You can now listen to the chat using the SoundCloud widget below.

Asked for his reaction to the death of SLAYER guitarist Jeff Hanneman, who passed away one day earlier, Strömblad said: "I was really, really shocked and I was really sad. Usually I don't react like that when people die. But he's been quite an inspiration for me.

"When I was a kid, I picked up 'Hell Awaits', 'Haunting The Chapel' and all those albums, and I always thought of Jeff as the coolest guy. He [wrote] the best [SLAYER] songs. I even was an L.A. Kings fan because he always had that shirt on.

"I didn't know [his illness] was that serious. Well, no one really knows what causes the liver failure. But it was a little bit of a shock, because I was waiting and waiting for him to recover and come back to the band. Because they are [also] touring with another drummer [at the moment]. It's not the same. It's like another band. So, yeah, we lost a legend."

THE RESISTANCE's full-length debut, "Scars", was released on May 10 in Europe and May 14 in the U.S. via earMUSIC, the Hamburg, Germany-based international rock label which is part of Edel Group. The 12-track CD is reminiscent of the good old days of Swedish death metal back in the 1980s/1990s when bands like ENTOMBED, GRAVE and DISMEMBER proved how insanely brutal and relentless, yet immensely captivating and technically adept extreme music can be. Well, apparently some established Swedish musicians did miss them, so they put things right: They brought back the old Swedish death metal.

"If you listen to ENTOMBED's 'Left Hand Path' today, it still blows everything away. And it's over 20 years old," said Strömblad. "[It's] just awesome death metal!"

Strömblad quit IN FLAMES in February 2010 in order to continue receiving treatment for his alcohol addiction.

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